About Me

The Rev Andries Combrink is a Presbyterian Minister of the Gospel. He lives in Centurion, South Africa. He is amongst others a blogger and lyrics writer. To teach the Word of God is his calling, based on the Reformed tradition.

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Paul tells us that the mystical body of Christ, the Church, is illustrated by our human body where every part has a specific function.

Each member of the Church has a role, a function, a ministry. Each member is necessary and important. Each member is inter-related to each other member. And when we all cooperate together under the leadership of the only Head and King of the Church, Jesus Christ, the ministry of the local church is powerful and effective.

Because our various gifts are all necessary and important, there is a certain responsibility we have toward one another. With the responsibility comes accountability. We need one another. When one of us is lazy in our calling at church, the ministry of another suffers. We therefore have a responsibility to exercise the gifts and ministries God has given us.

That is God’s idea to make the congregation strong and effective!

We are accountable to God about what we have done with the talents he gave us to serve him and each other. We should also hold each other accountable for enhancing our combined work for the Lord and encourage each other. The leg can disable the foot and the arm can disable the hand.

And a brother or sister can disable me!

Let’s build each other up in faith, sacrificial love and enthusiasm. Let’s serve the Lord joyfully in his church community as equals called by grace, through faith.

We need to understand that the Church is all about relationship and how we manage these relationships.

You know that the Church is not bricks and mortar, it is people. The New Testament word for Church means "the called out ones." The Church is not a physical building or space. The Church is made up of Christians. The Church is all of us. In the Church, we are related to one another in a vital union of the Spirit.

It is a relationship based on a reflection of who we are in relation to each other.

Rom 12: 3: For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

God’s idea is that we rejoice in his work in and through us. God’s idea is that it is through every believer in the body of Christ that his work gets accomplished.

But we are not the same!

Rom 12: 4 – 5: Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

Ministers and elders can realise God’s idea about the church by:

Not allowing some members more “air-time” with us than the others;

Treating each member with the same respect, love and dignity;

Not having favourites; walking the lonely road of being a friend to everyone – which means that we are never special friends to only a few;

Carefully managing the checks and balances of influence and authority to protect the congregation against “Church Capture” by a few with ambitions to be more special than others;

Securing and affirming the ruling elders – Session – to play their Biblical role (as set out in our Manual) and deny any takeover by members with a worldly hunger for status, influence and power;

Always serve with the bold humility according to the example of our Lord, Jesus Christ.